A visual anthropology of war

The integrated battlefield

》》》Sovereignty over digital and technical capabilities
》》》Drone warfare and consolidation of air defence lines
》》》Degrees of technological complexity and responsibility
》》》AI on the battlefield

The paradox of the integrated battlefield is that while it is made transparent by its digitalisation, it expands to sizes or territories that make it extremely difficult and resource intensive to keep in constant overview. The perimeter of the integrated battlefield expands, requiring a constant flow of resources to monitor it and to enable timely responses and decisions. The battlefield thus turns into an eco-system, where drones, satellites and maritime autonomous systems create a technological network in which sensors, communications channels and effector systems complement each other (Wennink, 2025). The integrated battlefield is an elongation of the front lines in terms of technological development and deployment, with encounters with the enemy’s technology and lateral technological encounters being needed for driving development further at exponential speed. This integration is resource intensive, especially for the deployer defending the home front, who needs to add the management and logistical chains for the deployment and development of the novel technologies to its war effort. The battlefield in Ukraine thusprovides a unique testing ground for emerging technology and shortens innovation cycles, allowing for cascading incorporation of results in Western armies. Faster deployment of technology to the end users on the front lines is wanted, needed and undertaken, weather in the physical or digital battlefield. With the growing manifestation and overlapping effects of grey warfare, cyber-attacks and geopolitical re-alignments disrupting supply chains, autonomy in the technological and digital space becomes one element of the integrated battlefield that increases state defence capabilities.

Groen op straat: between militarization of society and symbiosis 

The distant front
The home front

The distant front

We, in the West, have grown weary of the visual presence of the military within our society. Green on the street - Groen op straat - is being perceived as a militarization of society and triggers emotional reactions in the civilian population. Green on the street is seen as alterity, as an element belonging to an external environment that is just passing through the fixed characteristics of urban life.  It represents someone who very likely temporarily returned home from a mission in a distant place and only temporarily is present in its current form in the urban environment. For settling, the green is expected to be shed. This positioning or reaction is not a form of restriction or rejection. It is part of the expectations that we – perhaps unconsciously – have internalised about how we perceive the militaries and their core activity – defence and combat: as activities projected to faraway places.  

We, in the West, have long had the mental projection of war being something very distant, and us choosing to take part in distant just wars, as defenders of the values we embrace at home. In this purpose we practice our defence capabilities and train our military in faraway combat theatres, while at home we see it as self-explanatory that our military trains within enclosed perimeters, often away from the public gaze. The latter is not a rejection of the military activity, but a manifestation of the former – the perception that war is detached from our society and is a product of export, for which some members of our society choose to prepare as part of their professional career, which is seen as any other career choice. 

For a long time we have perceived defence as a product or activity mainly meant for export, to which we contribute in financial terms as one form of multidomain international partnerships.   

We are accustomed to deploying to war zones, not to preparing for war on our own soil. 

 We publicly praise the successes and acts of heroism of those who come back and tell their stories and find comfort in knowing that we – as a society - had delegates that represented us and the values we stand for in conflict struck places where those values are under threat. We acknowledge the social costs of this deployment and spread it across a wider network for better support. We embrace our young deploying for missions abroad and entrust them in the care of their seniors and the organisation itself, relying on the fact that through numbers comes strength, that training has prepared them for the challenges ahead and that technology comes to their aid.  

The home front 

In a country fighting a long war of survival, temporary presence of military in urban environments is often the case. Some military are permanently stationed in urban areas, but many military come temporarily in urban settings during leave to reunite with family and friends, or to do whatever needed to be done and had to be postponed for being on the frontline. And the next front line or the next safe house is never far away.  Because this is not a projected combat, this is an existential combat. Which nations do on their own soil, thus most often in enclosed borders, and on familiar ground. Perhaps this is the advantage of waging war at home, if one dares to use that word: 

             the front is never too far away, family and friends are never too far away – if they decided to stay - home or what was home is never too far away. They might be out of reach, but they are not far.   

Green on the street becomes in time a natural element, still visual noticeable – it does stand out in its uniqueness and in what it represents. The mind makes that association between the visual clue and the representation of the function in the split of a second. In time, the function overtakes the visual indicator in primacy:

      it is no longer a military on the street, on the train or in a public building. It is the army, it is the fight that is still being fought, for years, in all places and at all times, without bounding to a place, without enclosed protective spaces and without a schedule.

  Green on the street in a country at war can also mark fault lines and hidden tensions within society, between those who choose the green and those who chose differently. It is a reminder that somewhere outside the city, in points along a long contact line, many man and women in green are fighting a very different fight that the one being fought in the city, with different means. 

I have previously addressed the symbiosis of the military and civilian parts of society within an environment struck by a long all-out war such as the one in Ukraine (Popa, 2026). In Ukraine, the symbiosis of the civilian with the military is observed in the openness of broadcasting via public televised media of military specific information by military personnel (thus “in green”). This includes developments from the front lines, video footage from drone strikes on enemy targets in different environments, weapon handling (assembling and disassembling, shooting), comparison of weapons features and interviews with military on the front line of back from the front line. Most often there is no filtering of images, and no observed phasing of content in time intervals according to levels of violence or disturbing content. Immersion in the military experience is thus mediated and military experience updated or exchanged.  

 We do not have to reach this symbiosis by experiencing a war for existential survival. Conscious campaigns of increasing national resilience slowly aid in making the population feel at ease towards the presence of the military in everyday life. Similarities between campaigns of recruitment in the military can be observed between public campaigns in Ukraine and the Netherlands, often referring to sense of purpose, daring and courage. Differences are noted as well. The question of mobilization in an all-out war is self-explanatory and bears no detailing. But the sense of moral weight of alternative choices is underlined in recruitment campaigns in Ukraine:

 If you are not in the military when the country is at war, what are you doing that is serving the country better?  

           seems to be the underlying message.  

It boilboils down to the question: Who and what is the military at its core?  

 

References  Popa, D. (2026). Forward facing approach to consolidating and integrating resilience capabilities. Red Sky 4. Available at: https://redsky4.nl/reports-and-publications/ 

Published on the 4 February 2026

Theories of Victory

Diplomatic efforts around a ceasefire in Ukraine focus on a point system peace plan. Choice of words is relevant: ceasefire not peace.  Theories of victory are constructed, reconstructed, dissected and discussed. The fact that we need to rationalize and operationalize the term victory and its sense, the fact that we need to construct the definition of victory and have such difficulty in coming to a generally accepted definition just stands to show this is not Peace according to the definition, principles and values that we have used, defended and represented until now.

The fact that we need to convince ourselves of what victory is, the fact that we put so much time and effort into this self-persuasion exercise, skewing both definitions and principles and distorting reality shows that we force ourselves to swallow a bitter pill as we bend the values and principles that we so proudly and freely stood for. It looks as if whatever the end is, we need to label it as victory. 

When looking at victory, questions to be answered are:

What are we defending?

The people? The territory? Freedom? And Which of these does the points peace plan defend or represent? 

In the aftermath of these times, when we will gaze upon victory and see what it looks like, how will we answer the questions: 

Did we defend the people? 

Did we defend the territory?

Did we defend freedom?

Did we defend our principles? 

A passage from The New Yorker – bears resemblance to the present. 

One just has to replace the names: 

“If war comes – it will be war, and no one wants that. If peace is restored, it will be another arrangement, enlarging not simply the German boundary but the Hitler dream. The world knows it can’t win”. E. B. White. – The New Yorker; 2 September 1939. 

Date of first publication: 29th of December 2025

Book review and reflections on “Gewapend met gevoel” by Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan.

 

  • Overview

“Armed with feelings” - the title of Elanor’s book can receive different meanings, depending on one’s own personal experience, timing and location of its lecture. A book described in the introduction as being about “The price of visibility and the power of the strange outsider  - “buitenbeentje” ( a Dutch word difficult to translate in one equivalent word in the English language – what word by word would translate as “someone with one leg outside”) relates the experience of challenging or disrupting the status quo in the military and being SEEN as doing so due to the visible alterity given by gender.

Elanor’s honest personal story makes for a candid read, although, one may add, Elanor is anything but a soft or timid voice, seeing her speak on the topics she obviously cares about very much. This personal touch is what makes the message that more convincing and is one of the contributions of the book: challenging the status quo not through declarative, ostensive positions, but rather through rational questioning of realities that find rational reasons to be challenged and feasible and decent solutions to be implemented in an environment that affords to do so. 

 

The following sections present reflections on the points made by Elanor in the book, underlying similar and alternative experiences.

 

 

  • Location, Location 

Having read Elanor’s account while on military base, going through an intensive training programme, made the account in the same time that more familiar and, strange as it may seem, that more distant. 

Shared experiences from Elanor’s accounts include: the struggles with the fit of the issued equipment, the length of allocated weapon, how you wear your hair [in my case loose while in the mess hall and questioned as to if it is necessary to have it tied as during training or mission] – and resonate with experiencing training for combat deployment. 

Yet, in an environment that to the neophyte or the outsider might seem the same, starch discrepancies between the two lived experiences emerge, underlining the differences between the manifest choice and associated conditions and drivers of preparing for combat as a career path and the necessity of waging a war of survival – for one’s country, one’ s family and sese of identity. The latter means responding to immediate threats and having to achieve the highest possible standard of combat in a compressed timeframe, one that would not fit any programmes designed with a career choice in mind, but rather as preparing for a war of existential survival.

 

These are two fundamentally distinct realities: the choice of preparing for war and choice for defence as profession or calling and the fact of waging a war of survival, shaping how training, deployment and combat are experienced.

 

Training in an environment long term affected by war changes the nature of the training, even if training in peace conditions replicates war time as much as possible. Mainstream films about what extreme military training programmes mean show the cathartic moment of ringing a bell of another clear means of signalling that one has reached their limits, in either physical or mental terms and chooses to stop with the programme. This again reflects the perspective of preparing for a war of choice, for training as part of the chosen profession. In a war of existential survival, such a bell doesn’t exist. Here one lives the warning “if you  don’t fight now, prepare for your children to die (fighting) tomorrow”.  This is where you see all ages engage in preparation for and participation in war. 

 

 

  • Uniforms ≠ uniformity 

Elanor’s stance on the importance of making room for others (Ruimte maken for anderen) reminds of the “leading from behind” approach and Simon’s Sinnek’s “leaders eat last”. This reflects the position of putting the individual and the organisation – Defence in this case – at the centre. It is also relevant in a heterogeneous group in terms of age, experiences, specialisations and backgrounds. Yet again, these are choices that peacetime affords. So very different from having to set-up organisational structures during war time. Churchill’s account of setting up the War Cabinet in WWII comes to mind. Taking the lessons from the political realm is relevant here as well. In the political realm, philosophy tells us that the very best have a moral duty to be politically engaged in the affairs of the state and that lack of political engagement by the very best of society leads to a situation where the polis is conducted by less than the very best of its citizens. This leads to and the idea that “if you choose not to be engaged with the affairs of the polis, then you deserve the leaders that you have”.

Reading Elanor’s account on being told -  “je past hier niet” – (you don’t fit in here) recalled of phrases such as “[this] is not for you” and ”you weren’t the deadliest of the group but never missed one day of training”, suggesting the preference – not need – for uniformity. 

The following should be said about the necessity of uniformity within the group. The idea of pieces that need to fit together comes as a reflection of waging war as a matter of choice, or rather of benefiting from the choice of allocating an abundance of resources to an abundance of different needs, a reflection of aiming to bring together elements that could, in the fastest time possible, be moulded in a uniform conglomerate that can be manoeuvred towards prior defined objectives with the least resistance (tegenkracht) possible. This perspective of the perquisite to “fit in” in the military in order to have a place in it is different from the Swedish or Finish perspectives of whole of society approach to defence and the Israeli perspective of the citizen – soldier – all streaming from environments that are (potentially) faced with existential threats and that have a history of facing such cold or hot threats. 

 

 

  • War has no gender

Reading Elanor’s struggles regarding “female facilities” during military training or deployment – especially in terms of sleeping facilities was particularly striking when doing so in an open dormitory space with 30-40 men. In such a space, with a little inventiveness, one quickly learns how to obtain visual privacy: the bottom bunk bed can quickly be turned into an enclosed space, using one of the issued or available pieces of equipment – mattress cover, poncho, thermal blanket or towel. Acoustic isolation is however not recommended in a space where one must quickly react to alerts. At night as well, the space becomes surprisingly quiet given the number of persons occupying it. There is respect for the presence of (the few) women in the compound, respect for following the same training, wearing the same heavy full gear four hours – sometimes days on end, doing drills, night shifts and all the rest. 

Elanor gives several times examples from Ukraine and how women in the Ukrainian army expect fast improvements regarding ill-fitting equipment such as body armour in order to be at their best on the frontlines. This allows for focusing on the task rather than having to struggle with the equipment, again something that in a training or short term deployment which is part of a career choice can be seen as a temporary hindrance that could be pushed through during the beforehand known time frame, (although one might ask as to the why that this should be so) but that in the case of training for quick deployment to the front line could take its toll on overall achievement. And if evaluation standards are the same regardless of gender but equipment has different impact on overall performance, we are left with an unbalance. As Elanor describes it – “it is the difference between working safe and efficient and constant compensating”. I would add to this the importance of a well-fitting BH, as having to wear one day and night inevitably leaves rashes. This is the case since an air alarm could sound at any time, requiring gearing up and staying out for an unknown period of time. Therefore, given:

  • number of pieces in the full gear one has to get into after jumping out of bed at the sound of the air alarm and someone next to you shouting “AIR RAID”:
    • thermal layer, uniform, winter jacket and winter trousers, boots, combat belt, body armour, helmet, weapon, backpack, sleeping bag;
    • low temperatures;
    • time required to be in full gear and battle ready;

one learns how to optimise clothing and equipment: not taking the BH off is one way. At the price of skin rashes. Others choose to sleep half equipped. Either way, discomfort is inevitably present. 

It is understandable to address such issues as early as possible, because in war time you do have to wear that body armour or backpack for extended periods of time that inevitably will cause back pain just because of the weight, regardless of actual fit. Programs for combat veterans in Ukraine casually mention measures for recovering from back pain caused by wearing body armour and full gear. It is an experience shared by many, with consequences felt by a large segment of society – given the national draft – and that is addressed through coordinated national programmes.

Other forming experiences one usually acquires during standard military training are altered when in real war conditions. In wartime, the bed that must be made up with military precision mentioned by Elenor is disturbed by consecutive night air raid alarms requiring all military personnel to dress up in full battle gear within minutes and reach designated outside gathering point. This has the effect of a hurricane passing through the barracks, leaving things ravished, broken, discarded. 

One finds that wartime conditions thus alter the weight of having “female facilities”. Showering in wartime is another facility that is not gender specific. On base, many showers are open spaces, with no privacy shield. Timetables for women shower time can be disturbed by lack of hot water in the allocated interval – given low demand based on number of women. This means inevitably showering late in the evening during “male time” shower schedule. However, nakedness in war and in preparing for war has a different connotation and becomes universal: it is flesh that has been tested, hit, hardened, shaped by constant required effort. Seeing nakedness on the battlefield changes one’s perception of the human body: it becomes flesh covered in uniform drags, blood, bandages, dirt. In the showers, the body shows the marks of battle, of fatigue, of the intense training, through scars, bruises, muscle. It needs cleansing from the mud and dirt of the trenches, of the forest, from the sweet of the effort it is constantly put under. Showering is experienced as a gift by many military, a relaxing moment. Often music is played via portable loudspeakers personal streaming device. It is the shared experience of the realities of the battlefield and the training, of having experienced the scarcity of possibility of showering – on the frontlines for weeks on end – that transforms the washing experience in a gender neutral one. 

The chapter on “Breasts and tanks” reminded me of the experience of colouring one’s hair on base: after two months of forest and trench training, self-care requires some time and effort. Skin on fingers is hardened from  weapon cleaning and magazine loading. Waxing is out of the question given lack of private space to do so and if not beforehand prepared with the necessities. 

Hair colouring requires some effort and inventiveness. On base, this can look as follows: after a weekend trip to the nearest city for supplies, triangulation of facilities is required: colouring is applied in the woman’s toilet  - which is supplied with sink and mirror and – important detail - radiator that can be turned on while waiting for the dye to work for the indicated time. Then: walking outside across the sports yard, green tents, barracks to the building with the universal showers (with no sinks, toilets or power supply for a hair drier) and washing the dye off, then walking again outside back to the tent/barracks with the sleeping arrangements with bunkbeds for drying. 

 

  • Landscape

A phrase from Elanor’s book that requires elaboration: “the paradox of defence is therefore this one: we train for war in landscapes that could exist only due to rest”. 

In the Netherlands we train for war in a landscape where we first have to negotiate for quotas over CO2 and noise and land allocation per sector of activity. We are negotiating and lobbying for preparing to fight war in a comfortable, clean and organised fashion: see the programme “Ruimte voor defensie”. And often – it is other areas that receive priority. Yet waging war is a messy business, in more than the effects that different calibres and types of weapons have on the natural and constructed space. Real war devastates landscape in far more ways and on a greater perimeter that the one actually seeing combat. 

As the pyramid of needs is affected by long term war waging, landscape is also affected, in an uncontrollable way. What we now negotiate in terms of priority of scarce resources allocation (space, financial means, people) is uncontrollably affected in real war conditions. Not only actual combat but also troop movements and training leave long lasting marks on the landscape. And these types of marks are much harder to prevent or remedy. 

Discarded bottles and packaging that in a forest during peace time would lead to a fine, in a war area become marks of how a night raid was spent, a training exercise or troop movement took place. The amounts and diversity of discarded left-overs and packaging in forests and other natural areas speak stories about the ones passing through and the circumstances of this passage: is it cans of energy drinks? power bars packaging? canned food? bottles of alcohol, cigarette buds or plastic bottles of water? black plastic bags used for cover? wet wipes? These marks tell the story of the battles taking place, the people conducting them and the conditions in which they were fought. Cleaning up these natural spaces will take a lot of time and effort – none of these are biodegradable. 

The lesson then is this: protecting the landscape that we cherish should have this perspective in mind: closing off an area now for protecting it might expose it in the future to disruptions we cannot control and we did not anticipate because we never tested war conditions when we could have controlled and planned for observed effects.

 

  • Technology

War times has seen faster and more intensive innovation cycles. This is true for technology, and preparation cycles. Elanor’s account of the organisational resistance towards the introduction of drones is another example of the different impact that innovation has during peace time and during war time.

In wartime conditions, innovations that allow for any advantages in regards with the enemy are adopted organically, tested in real-life conditions. Organisational structures change organically as well, in response to results and needs. Technological innovation and social innovation develop simultaneously and adapt at different levels. Given differences in the character of the technological and social landscapes, and regional or local differences in the enemy’s deployed capabilities and actions, different (sub)-profiles of technological innovation develop, that could be transferred to other contexts or could remain location specific due to uniqueness of combined factors. 

 

 

  • The role of emotions

One often hears that emotions have no place in combat, that one must always keep a cool head and use the rational brain instead of the emotional one, which, as Goleman explained, do not function simultaneously but only one at a time, as the activation of the emotional brain deactivates the cognitive one. And yet, in wars for survival, it is the emotion that fuels the fight, despite all rational odds indicating insignificant chances of success or survival. Personal motivation becomes key in the duration and span in which one engages in combat. It is the difference in choosing defence as profession during peace time, opting for deployment in a foreign mission and waging war of survival. It can go as far as the cautionary tale of Machiavelli and Sun Tzu about paid soldiers and the belief that “armies fight battles, nations fight wars”. 

Paaratheid  - a word so often used heard in the last year in Dutch media, that translates more or less as readiness for engaging in combat - is reflected on the ground by the principle “Eyes bright and fingers light”. There is a unique look that mirrors the soul of the one who is fighting a war of existential survival, or who has lived it, one that can be seen in the eyes of Ukrainian military women. It is best described in Oleksander’s book – The language of war – that is not the language of reason but the language of emotion. 

The fact that defence of one’s country is driven by feelings – in my view is reflected by the motto of Dutch defence: Beschermen wat ons dierbaar is – Protect that which we hold dear. This is a commonality I would say: it summarizes a sentiment, just as Oleksandr’s convinces that hate is what drives fighting for survival. If feeling is a driver for what we do – defend - if a feeling is at the very core – it becomes understandable how the need to protect could lead to the position described by Oleksandr Mykhed  - war as the language of hate: “The only language we can speak is the language of war”. It becomes a duality – cherishing what one protects and loathing what threatens it. 

 

Two books about life in the military infused with personal accounts – both about the lived experience of combat and training, yet so different from each other: “Gewapend met gevoel” and “The Language of war” –– one about the rationalisation of emotion as a means of facilitating  positive change, the other about what the experience of war does to the human soul. 

What Europe can learn from China, Russia and the US
- Position Paper Series - 

By Diana Popa 

May-June’25

  • Europe

While the world shared in the upheaval caused by the tariffs imposed by the new US administration, Europe continued to be confronted with major security, economic and political challenges determined by the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its spillover effects. The escalation of the conflict in the Middle East also has strong reverberations across Europe, leading to legal, moral and political clashes and manifesting through protest movements. This accumulation of events or multiple crises, together with elections being held in many European states in the recent timeframe have exacerbated existing conditions and given rise to debates that challenge the very foundations on which the European project has been carefully constructed and has continued to develop in a West to East accumulation. 

In Europe, current calls for new bi-lateral or multilateral partnerships, alliances and diplomatic ties meant to compensate the effects of the “trade war” and to replace a potential sudden void determined by a US isolationism or withdrawal from Europe as a top tier region of interest, contribute to weakening the very foundation on which the political and executive democratic mandate was founded on, synchronically and diachronically. These debates are reinforced by already existing conditions allowing for practical erosion of what traditionally were seen as the strengths of the democratic system, an erosion that accelerates the outliving of democratic exercises, shortens democratic cycles, and exacerbates conflicts from within. 

In Europe, recent elections in many states gave rise to public debates about what the country’s priorities should be in this context of national and international competing and often conflicting interests, putting left wing and right wing solutions face to face. Elections have become intensely emotionally charged, and in some cases even contested events and a revival of right wing parties has been noticed across Europe. 

Major shifts on the political spectrum often manifest as a result of accumulation of factors and are best explained in their historical context. At an individual level, it has been argued that one more likely embraces the left at a young age, as the principles of the left often attract young minds, and that it is the lived experience - age - that comes to shape perspectives, often leading to a shift towards the political and philosophical right. The measure in which this shift occurs is thus influenced by both individual and historical context. Yet, through the lens of traditional political Western philosophy, the case was also made that the left is inherently flawed and doomed to fail because of its set goals of being moral and just in what is - I would add  -  a battle of supremacy of principles becoming one of survivability of principles. 

Internal and external collisions with alterity, leading to the existence of opposition forces, are needed for the functioning of the political system. In a space of enabled choices, the left and right of political thought need each other in order to become practiced, lived experiences and assumed positions, as collision with alterity is needed for boundaries to become visible. Internally, while the co-existence of alternative views has grown to be seen as the trademark of democratic rule, existence of alterity should not mean universal accommodation. Democracy developed and functioned as a political system in a limited span of differences. The continuous stretching of this span eventually weakened the very thread of democratic fabric, and the more it accommodated, the more worn out its fundament became, up to the point that the material’s strength could no longer support the heavy loads of divergent forces. In its accommodating positions, in trying to be equally just and equally moral, the West lost its own self-perception. Faced now with multiple international crises, the West tries to re-exercise the moral function it once had, is faced with the effects of its erosion from within and, in the case of Europe, is faced with a world that no longer perceives it as the centre of Western thought and power it once was. 

Externally, since the end of the Second World War, Russia and China have been the alterity the West has used for reflecting its own position and view over the world. They have offered in this regard a constant reference point and enabled the construction of a cohesive image of the self. The cohesion of the Western construction as a unified contrasting force to the Red Block has started to erode, by means of simultaneous centrifugal forces slowing down and accelerating centripetal ones weakening its core. Core diluting accommodating behaviour made system penetration possible and weakened resistance towards what prior had clearly been the other side. With the end of the Cold War and the perception of the ultimate victory of democracy as the end of conflict, democracy lost its external opponent and reason for keeping up defence capabilities, therefore becoming porous. The West’s struggles for existence thus started from within, once self-protection mechanisms were removed, following the belief that the “end of history” had been witnessed and that democracy – what was at the time the unified visible force that opposed communism - was destined to be embraced by all. Since then, during a time when external opposition forces seemed to dissolve, the West became accustomed with mere survival, slowly and unwarily loosing the strength of its core convictions and core identity. In not having to fight external opposition forces, the manifest exercise of existence, as a matter of constantly and consciously lived choices and believes, became a mere self-indulging survival. 

 

  • Russia and China

Revisionist and traditional adversaries of the West in terms of values, declared and practiced geostrategic positions and interests represented by what has come to be called the “Axis of upheaval” formed by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, have been much more stable in their ideological and political geostrategic alignment than have Western powers been in theirs. The opponents of the West have had a much more constant positioning and manifestation of their view of the word and more pragmatically assumed the reasons for chosen incursions. Much like the argument that the right does not aim to be moral, while the left strives to do so and therefore it is inherently doomed to fail, the assumed position of this axis is less struck by changes in ideological alliances and ideological slippages than is the West. Parallels regarding military conflict or potential conflict come to underline this difference in perspectives. Many commentators have mentioned that the way Europe reacts to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will determine or influence how China reacts in relation to Taiwan. However, this reflects a Eurocentric perspective. China has a proactive vision of the world and a different time horizon for its strategy. It pursues strategic goals in what it has called the hundred-year marathon, prioritizing certain objectives only in terms of timespan not in terms of actual accomplishment, and not in terms of either – or. In doing so, it stabilizes and strengthens its position, thus allowing it to further pursue those long term goals. 

Russia and China are comfortable with who they are. They are not apologetic when faced with contestation and, perhaps more relevant for the argument here, they are constant in their positions and long term objectives, munch unlike the democratic Western world, internally eroded by self-doubt and accommodating positions. 

 

  • The US

Changes in US politics have further destabilised the position of the West as a united front, determining even more adaptation behaviour on the part of Europe, having to scramble for more security and trading partners. Debates around the consequences of the US tariffs call for finding alternative trading partners in this new shifting world, as solution for lowering dependencies and associated risks. While politicians battel out diplomatic alternatives often for countering first mover effects and plugging economic hols in a constant game of playing catch up instead of pursuing long term assumed strategic objectives, European defence preparedness is suffocated by harmonisation efforts of competing and redundant coordinating and policy oriented structures, having little financial absorption capacity in terms of impact of actual defence readiness, power projection capability and lethality. This “safety boat” strategy only further weakens long term stability and autonomy of the region, providing a safety net for current leadership often at the cost of future generations that will have to historically rationalize the choices made today. Endless debates of finding alternative partners for trade, defence, critical materials, partially mimic the objectives and behaviours of China, Russia and the US, but without actually overtly assuming its expansionist functions. Worse than this, it mimics the criticized behaviour, but for the wrong reasons, forced to do so by the first choices of others. In doing so it risks becoming double hypocritical, once in abandoning its previous highly held principles used for defending what once were value based strategic partnerships and secondly in articulating a behaviour that it finds blameworthy in its opponents, even though, it would argue, in the pursuit of different goals. 

US reiterations about pivoting towards Asia, the demand for greater spending on defence from its NATO allies and the newly introduced tariffs have thrown European security and economic prospects off balance. In this, blame should not be thrown on states pursuing own agendas. After all, politicians, no matter orientation, give primacy to the interest of their own state. Pointing fingers, commenting on perceived declining nature of democratic rule and style of leadership of a certain country is of little use to one’s own dependent or week position in relation to that country. Yes, the challenges and crises that Europe faces are multiple. Both of the two major challenges - strengthening its military defences and restabilising its economic security - were caused by external factors, exacerbated by foundational dependencies built in by decades of path depending choices. Yet great powers choose and set their course and have proactive stances in the world. Confronted with the changes in the status quo, into which it had comfortably grown, Europe is now forced to simultaneously reconsider its internal priorities and external roles. On the world stage, instead of looking for new trade partners in order to compensate for the effects of what has been labelled as “the trade war” it should uphold the approach which it had turned into the lighthouse of its position in the world and up live those values and standards. 

Yes, the US wants to pivot towards the Indo-Pacific while at the same time put America first.  Yes, Europe is forced to reconsider its priorities and partnerships, but this should 1. not come at the cost of long term advocated position at the risk of looking hypocritical, 2. not be opportunistic in terms of savings in transactional costs, short terms political and economic gains and 3. not be done by means of accommodation driven by reactive response to external factors. In this pursuit, is should look to its traditional partners, recent or distant. 

Across Asia, Europe has domain specific collaborations. Japan for example has become a reliable partner in the region for joint NATO exercises, with additional structures and NATO member states partnerships such as GCAP. Pursuing these Europe – Asia partnerships should be thus done not through mimicry of behaviour but through upholding assumed positions. Again, great powers set their own course and stay the course, regardless of international criticism or clashing views. By this, great power means not only hard power, but actually being the symbol of a stable position that is recognized as such no matter what. Whether it is economics, military capabilities, technology, or a certain way of seeing the world, some or all of these aspects together. Both setting and staying the course and living by the values it has so long defended and at the same time criticized in terms of absence in others or adapting, not to new economic or political options of others but to new ways of governing the world will mean a transformative process for Europe. If change is the chosen course, it should be change with the courage of denouncing abandonment of certain positions as a matter of choice, not as a matter of necessity. Either way it will be a painful process. Yet again, standing up for whatever the course of action is, showing commitment to the assumed position and not being apologetic or reactive about it, is something that Europe can learn from China, Russia and the US. 

Comprehensive resilience systems for state defence. A report on the Dutch and Swedish contexts
*D. M. Popa

 

Summary

Recent geopolitical tensions and a fluid geopolitical context have made it clear that European countries need to ramp up their defence spending and develop comprehensive plans for the defence of their physical and cyber space. The present report reflects upon the increasing need for enhancing whole of society, whole of government approaches to building societal resilience in the face of increased geopolitical threats, reflects on the current status of these plans in Europe, and emphasizes the importance of psychological resilience, the will to defend and the civil – military relationship in these comprehensive plans. Digitalisation levels, country innovation profile and population digital literacy are all interconnected elements in a comprehensive resilience system. The importance of official narratives in countering disinformation and building population psychological resilience is presented. Existing but scattered theoretical frameworks, policy initiatives and programmes are revised and two categories of factors - hard and soft - are proposed for distinguishing the different conceptual elements of population resilience. The analysis combines technological, historical and psychological factors, looking at the effects of their intersectionality and their causality relationship. Against the current and evolving threat landscape, resilience maturity profiles are investigated in two contexts, namely the Netherlands and Sweden.

 

State of affairs

European outliers regarding maturity of resilience programmes, both in terms of timespan and comprehensive character of addressed measures are noted in the Scandinavian region, with Sweden being a notable case, known for her “If crisis or war comes” campaign, which includes medium to long term measures for also developing the populations’ will to withstand hardship and actively contribute to the defence effort. Resilience preparedness and government campaigns across Europe are thus diverse in levels of maturity, with some countries having more advanced practices of developing and sustaining population resilience, through constant messaging on the topic coming from governments. 

International organisations such as NATO and the EU call for more attention and budgets being dedicated to active and passive defensive measures and more assertive messaging is being put forward by NATO in order to align public expectations and reactions, emphasising the need for switching to a war mindset, a message expressed and reiterated by NATO’s  secretary-general (Parool, 2024). Developing this mindset is not only about being prepared for crisis, conflict or war in terms of subsistence possibilities, but also developing population resilience in the face of adversity, including psychological resilience. This last point is one of the most challenging objectives to achieve, with previous research going as far as labelling the will to defend as the “elusive X factor”. 

Resilience is described as: “Society’s ability to be prepared for, resist, absorb and/or achieve a new state of equilibrium after a disruption” (Eken et al., 2024: 2). Resilience is also an element that is easier to observe in its absence than in its presence. In other words, the effects of lack of resilience are harder felt and more visible in different degrees of disruption than are the effects of resilience maturity.

Insight into what populations are willing to do to actively defend their countries, how to enhance willingness to defend as well as how to optimise resilience thus become high agenda points, giving governments the opportunity to refine their whole of government and whole of society approaches for crisis and conflict preparedness. 

Approach taken

While including multiple factors, sectors of society and government from a whole of society, whole of government approach when formulating resilience policy recommendations and action plans, the present report proposes a combination of hard and soft factors and focuses on the - up to now - less researched psychological factors -  will to defend and population resilience. In doing so it considers how the military – civilian relation at country level, sense of identity and permeability towards foreign influence and manipulation campaigns (FIMI) feed as direct and indirect variables into the concepts of will to defend and population resilience when facing conflict, (hybrid) threats or war. In the present analysis, the following hard and soft factors are considered, looking at different national and societal levels:

Hard factors: 

  • degree of digitalisation and connectivity;
  • a country’s innovation profile;
  • technological infrastructure;
  • threat landscape (geopolitical);

Soft factors:

  • digital literacy;
  • democratic values;
  • psychological factors, including collective memory; 
  • governance structures;
  • national identity and forms of cohesion; 
  • the civil – military relationship. 

The Dutch and Swedish contexts

Resilience programmes need to be country and context specific, given the backgrounds that states have and threats that they face. These can be complimentary to  supranational organisation’s initiatives such as NATO and the EU, but need to be specific nonetheless. 

Despite the fact that the Netherlands has been a NATO member since its existence, public policies and programs targeted at population resilience and visibility of the theme of conflict readiness are less mature than their Swedish equivalents. Reasons for this include a different geographical threat proximity and conflict of priorities.

As for Sweden, she has a systemic approach for war preparation and population resilience (Fjäder & Schalin, 2024) built in time of peace that at the moment includes: 

  • Legislative initiatives (The Total defence service act);
  • Dedicated structures (e.g. the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency);
  • Initiatives for reinforcing population preparedness and resilience: “If crisis or war comes” pamphlet distributed nationwide).

Here, maturity of resilience programmes and total defence programmes are already high. Current and future research and policy should therefore address questions of: 

  • What effect does joining NATO have on the population resilience and will to defend?
  • What does resilience build-up mean in this context? 
  • How can resilience be heightened in an already mature pattern of resilient behaviour? 
  • How should governments enable sustainability of alertness and readiness levels and reinforcement actions? 
  • Is there an optimal threshold regarding visible actions taken by governments to facilitate population resilience that does not lead to panic or accusations of warmongering? 

Degree of digitalization and innovation profile

The digitalisation level, innovation profile and general population digital literacy level represent constituent factors in resilience programmes, the first two being what I characterised as “hard factors” and the latter being a “soft factor”. A high innovation profile and digitalisation level can constitute pull factors for obvert or subversive conflict as much as geographical proximity or geopolitical context, as they draw the attention of threat actors looking to destabilize democratic states leading in the global competition for technological autonomy or supremacy. High levels of digitalisation and mature innovation profile add thus to the attractiveness of a target. 

An increase in the level of open and covert threats against its economic security has been reported in the Netherlands (NCTV, 2023) as observed trends show state-sponsored interference impacting the social and political stability. Examples of sectors that are specifically targeted are the knowledge and innovation sectors, where attempts of influence and destabilisation are conducted through FIMI campaigns and through more concrete actions such as requests for collaboration, influencing collaborations, attempts to control partnerships or more broadly aggressive cyber campaigns. Countries with a high knowledge and innovation profile see a higher level of such attacks against them and have in reaction developed dedicated structures and programmes to counter these threats.

The Netherlands is a good example for how government structures have proactively and quickly developed policies, structures and implemented measures for countering state sponsored foreign interference campaigns, with dedicated programmes for the educational and economic sectors. Special units were developed for the protection of scientific and economic knowledge, such as the Contact Point for Knowledge Security and the Contact point for Economic Security for Enterprises. These entities act as second or third line of defence, offering practical guidance and tailored advice to institutions and organisations on questions ranging from what are the main threats regarding cybersecurity or the regulations on export control, what to watch out for when working with a foreign knowledge institution or when selecting new personnel, to how to make an evaluation of the risk profile of a certain country, how social media is used for spying, what are the requirements for acquisitions and fusions, or the recommendations for business trips regarding protection of knowledge and IP.

While there is an increased sense of the perceived danger, what is needed is concrete ex-ante advice on deterrence measures to be implemented, drawn from specialized intelligence on the real threat landscape (not just what the public perceives as such), public awareness raising based on lessons learned from previous (cyber) attacks and also public information campaigns on what the government does in order to counter foreign action interference, as a form of reassurance mechanisms (FD, 2024). 

The need for a whole of society, whole of government approach is thus underlined by multiple arguments. Threats do not manifest themselves against a single segment: neither crisis, nor threats or attacks are sequential or single targeted. Neither should measures and initiatives aimed at building resilience be conducted in a compartmentalised, sector specific fashion, following a strict civil – military divide or focus on inter-agency cooperation. The military - civilian relationship is important in the resilience equation for several reasons, as presented in bellow. 

 

Constructing narratives

In addition to concrete and planned actions for building population resilience, a strong national narrative needs to be constructed for facilitating a mental collective change (AIV, 2024). Constructing this narrative also requires making the threats known, since deterrence needs to be visible in order to be effective. The importance of narratives is paramount for shaping public opinion and for public resilience, as narratives can be used for both defence and offence purposes. For example, in the Nord Stream case, contradictory narratives were used for creating confusion at multiple levels (international, national and local). 

In parallel with investigation of threats that might have a psychological effect on the population, reinforcing narratives around core values represents an additional line of defence. Representative in this regard in terms of messaging, timing and conciseness is the quote in the Swedish brochure “If crisis or war comes”: If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false.

Care should be taken when conducting this reinforcement exercise, considering the risk of polarisation and extremism. In building resilience, similarly to combating disinformation, the “playing the long game strategy” is needed. However, in the context of rising threats, this build-up must be accelerated and sustained. One way to develop targeted context specific resilience programs is to early involve the population together with the government and armed forces in the design of national security plans and resilience. This builds resilience proactively and raises awareness levels at the same time, while early addressing any fears (AIV, 2024) in a whole of society approach to collaboration and mobilisation. Expert recommendations (AIV, 2024) also include developing national security courses, after the Finnish model, and a broader dissemination of these in different stakeholder groups. 

Literacy levels play a role in the ease with which foreign influence campaigns can be successfully conducted. As previously mentioned, trust in government and high levels of overall trust make it so that the population is less inclined to questioning the periodicity of the messaging reaching it through different channels. While this valuable social fabric woven and strengthened in time and by collective history should not be undermined, it must be accompanied by constantly reinforcing critical inquiry and digital skills. Overall digital literacy and critical thinking are important in order to be able to critically assess an act of digital communication and to choose between different media channels.

 

The military - civilian relation 

The reflections on the military – civilian relation addressed in this report are subsumed under two perspectives: first, the blurred line that in practice can take shape during war, and second, the pre-conflict relation at society level between the military and civilian part of the population. Regarding the first point, a grey zone area arises regarding the degree of involvement of civilians in active combat. Civilian involvement in combat or contribution to it doesn’t come without external critical inquiry. Active war theatres such as the one in Ukraine, where civilians can live feed information on surveying drones in data capturing apps that are then used for defence purposes by the military have given rise to questions regarding the limits between civil and military personnel under international humanitarian law. This dilemma has seen different forms of manifestation in the past, with strategists like Clausewitz defending the idea in “On War” that “however much pains may be taken to combine the soldier and the citizen in one and the same individual, whatever may be done to nationalise wars”. The dilemma has taken however new, more complex forms, given the intricate questions of human – machine intertwining relation in modern warfare. Therefore, the current challenge is not only a legislative one, in terms of delineating military and civilian forces when engaging in combat, but in practice it is also a strategical one, in terms of proactively developing resilience initiatives and simultaneously adapting legislation to the changing threat and geopolitical landscape. As things currently stand on this point, international legal harmonization needs further analysis. An additional complicating factor is the blurring of the line between war and peace, with Europe being characterized in public media as “not at war but not in peace either”, with the grey zone of warfare being more and more prominent. 

Since defence ultimately resides under the sovereignty of each nation state, despite being part of an integrated alliance such as NATO, nation states develop own defence strategies depending on their own security posture and thereat landscape. Capitalizing on such strategies needs context adaptation, including addressing population inclination towards engaging in conflict. The feasibility of the measures set out in national defence programmes in terms of building population resilience are affected by hard factors such as physical environment space and legal room for manoeuvre (Dutch Ministry of Defence, 2024) and also by less visible but durable factors like the military - civilian relation. I shall address these two categories of factors in the following. 

The military – civilian relation has a direct effect on the national will to fight in democratic societies (Conable, 2022) and has potential to influence timelines for adoption of resilience measures. It is also considered a high durability impact factor on the willingness to fight (Conable, 2018) and as such a relationship that requires nurturing.

The premiss of building resilience within the population assumes an original position of levelled or neutral ground upon which resilience can be built. However, in some contexts, there is also a matter of population opposition or resistance that first has to be countered in order to allow for resilience building. Such forms of resistance can come either from a priory  ideological positions or from conflict of priorities, such as land or airspace use conflicts. If governments find it challenging to change to a mindset of risk acceptance (Eken et al, 2024), envisioned population resistance towards efforts needed for resilience building measures are an influencing factor in this regard. 

Thus, in addition to concrete efforts needed for resilience, there is also the matter of conflicting priorities that influence the acceptance levels of any defence related initiatives. Conflicting military – civilian priorities are to be found in both the Dutch and Swedish national settings analysed here. In Dutch context, a clear example of resistance is due to conflict of land priorities. Here, both high military (Rob Bauer in NOS interview, 2024) and civilian officials have been recommending building up of resistance within the Dutch population in order to be better prepared against future threats, observing a current weakness in the level of population preparedness for crisis or conflict. Aligned with broader EU and NATO discussions of dedicating more budget for military purposes, the Dutch defence sector has received additional budget in the newly formed cabinet, together with a multi-dimensional development strategy (Ministry of Defence, 2024). This action plan of the Ministry of Defence, entitled “Space for Defence” (Ruimte voor Defensie) includes the construction of new defence purpose sites (military airports, munition depos, military bases and shooting ranges) and has been meet with opposition by the provinces where the future military sites would be constructed. Civilians raise accusations of noise pollution from airplanes or increased road traffic due to the activity of the military site in the proximity. This perceived noise pollution by the civilian population is what the US army calls “the sound of freedom”, antithesis underlying the difference in perspectives and priorities between civilians and the military. In the Netherlands, additional conflicting priorities come from citizens who fear they will be deprived of farming or construction land or that military traffic and activities in the area will interfere with their activity. This resistance has determined the Defence state secretary to go on a national tour in the fall of 2024 in order to address civilian concerns and obtain province support for the “Space for Defence” initiative. Campaigns are being recommended by decision makers and politicians regarding public messaging to counter the negative position vis-a-vis “having defence in your backyard” (former minister of Justice and Security Yeşilgöz, 2025), by focusing on the positive aspects of the closeness between the military and the civilians in cities and regions. In response to initial opposition reactions, a spatial – environmental - economic analysis has been commissioned in order to scientifically ground the official argumentation, with the associated criticism of the inherent delay that this will have on the start of the implementation measures. Land, noise and CO2 quotas therefore have to be negotiated for defence, as in democratic states the population has to “buy in” defence and resilience strategies, since motivation plays a key factor in long term support. These positions have also been criticised as a manifestation of a “culture of restrictions” or “culture of rules”, where right- and left-wing politics clash in their views over national and international priorities.  

Relevant to this debate is the distinction between the support for the national military and the support for investments, in terms of budget, manpower and public attention in international military alliances such as NATO, with population support being higher for the first category and linked to the question previously mentioned: What is one willing to defend and support? (the span of military support or engagement). In the Netherlands, initiatives of strengthening support for military forward facing initiatives or support for enhancing power projection such as involvement in NATO include a “NATO tour” – a series of debates and events, with high representatives of NATO taking the stage to bridge priorities and topics of concern (Openrijk, 2025). These initiatives can serve a nudging function in the direction of building up willingness to defend or to fight. Another measure for stimulating the support of the population towards the military is encouraging private investments in the defence sector, in addition to the public ones, such as investment of pension funds in risky assets in the defence sector (Buitenhof, 2025; Financial Times, 2025) that up to recently was not done. This overlaps with a previous general reticence of investments in the defence sector (often streaming from value infused beliefs), being seen as supporting military action representing either aggressive posturing or involvement in conflicts that were far from one’s own territory.

If visible markers of military presence have been contested in the last decennia in Europe, based on political or ethical positions towards the need for military preparedness, presence or continuation, lessons can be learned from the war in Ukraine on the way markers of military presence become seamlessly embedded within city structures and accepted by the civilian population. Here, visual (and acoustic) military presence has become stable part of the structure of cities and road infrastructure and accepted by the population. Camouflage fatigues, while obviously being visible in civilian life (on streets, in cities) are not perceived as alterity or separate military position, in a context where an entire country is at war and the boundary between military and civilians becomes in practice blurred. 

Similar discussions on population resistance to initiatives around military objectives and re-purposing of the living environment have been taking place in Sweden: one regarding the expansion of a shooting range and the time intervals in which it can be used, given, among other factors, noise pollution, and another on the growing usage of wind power, which comes into conflict with the army’s interest of having unobstructed manoeuvrer air space. This stands to show how resource scarcity at national level influences strategies for obtaining population support and building resilience and why resilience programmes must be context specific, both in terms of history and geography.

Plans for resilience must thus also consider the built environment, its intersection with geographical factors and population characteristics. Resilience elements can be built in the city if this factor is considered in the design phase, and arguably, some cities present structural characteristics that better facilitate resilience. Spatial capital can play a role in building or facilitating population resilience, understood as capacity to withstand crisis, conflict or hardship. Analysing cities case studies from different countries in contemporary and historical perspective, looking at historical determinism, understood as city history shaping moments and also corelating with population density is of relevance for future development of the built environment, with resilience in the face of conflict, crisis or war in mind. High population density represents a challenge for governments looking at resilience plans, given the pressure on critical infrastructure, services and subsistence means. Drawing on learnings from current conflict areas on how city design reacts to conflict and how conflict leaves its mark on cities is useful for plans of embedding resilience within the constructed space. Conflict preparedness initiatives include construction of new buildings for defence purposes or restoring of disaffected ones. Learning from post-conflict reconstruction efforts, governments deciding on urban development with resilience in mind can indicate their stance towards conflict, positioning themselves either towards restauration to pre-conflict status or reconstructing in anticipation of future conflict. Reconstruction cases in Israel are examples of the latter, with both efforts to aestheticize military infrastructure and reconstruction indicating the acceptance of parametrization of state of conflict. Visible indicator of this is the phenomenon of migrating from constructing of shelters at community level in the 60’s and 70’s to individual shelters in the present day (Dainese & Stanicic, 2022). In this regard, governments currently look into the rehabilitation of existing but often disaffected network of bunkers. Finland for example, has kept 50.000 cold war civil defence shelters functional that can receive 85% of the population. In the Netherlands, a relative wide network of such bunkers exists, some of which are visible – such as the Atlantic wall line on the coast of the North Sea, and open for visiting during “Bunker day”. As of January 2025, Norway’s government has been reported to plan for resuming construction of bomb shelters in reaction to the war in Ukraine (The Kyiv Independent, 2024). While building such new constructions might not be feasible or at least not a priority for all EU countries, the rehabilitation of existing spaces is a more practical step towards resilience building. Through visibility campaigns for these locations, awareness can be raised and resilience measures can be further elaborated in an indirect matter. From Finland comes another example of government measure taken to prepare the population for conflict, namely the opening of 300 new gun ranges for people who are interested in training, in addition to the reported 670 ones that are already active (Business Insider, 2024). This initiative is aligned with the idea that “when you need to know how to shoot or swim and you don’t, it’s too late” (Sweden Herald, 2024).  Another initiative that serves as indicator of the preparedness for conflict and a measure of building up resilience from Finland is that of the opening of 300 “crisis stores” that will be open only in time of crisis and are supplied with the basic good that the population needs. This comes in addition to the reported state owned grain stores, who’s location and size remain secret (Sweden Herald, 2025).

Of fundamental importance to the acceptance of these measures is the perception of the need to counter an immediate threat. In this regard, nuances regarding perceptions of threats to national identity as being either far away or an existential war play a fundamental role in population acceptance, either immediate or gradual. Recent reiterations of the principle “Armies fight battles, nations fight wars” come to mind here. Should the conflict or threat be perceived not as one of national interests, acceptance most likely will be low or slower. However, little research exists regarding what citizens are willing to do in preparation for the crisis, thus before the crisis has manifested itself. In the case of Sweden, the scale of willingness and preparedness to protect is developed in answer to the official policy that the Swedish population has a duty to contribute to the country’s total defence and that “everyone […] can be called up to assist in various ways in the event of the threat of war and war” [emphasis added]. This demarcation implies different engagement levels. At the same time, it requires a gradual escalation of proactive actions in response to enhanced hostilities that need prior build-up or reinforcement. Recent surveys have also shown that threat perception has little or no explanatory value on the will to defend in the Swedish context, but factors such as gender, trust and political orientation do (Persson & Widmalm, 2023). 

Differences in declared levels of the willingness of fight can be explained by several factors and should always be considered in their dynamic character. Strong expressed country attachment can be explained by multiple and different causes: proximity of threats shaping internal cohesion against a common visible enemy or the strength of the collective identity. Onderco et al. (2024) make the case that patriotism is a factor influencing willingness to fight and resilience. Recent polls in Germany and more broadly across Europe (Politico, 2024) also indicate a low willingness of the young generation to engage in armed conflict, even if the threat would be to their own country, a phenomenon worrying politicians and policy makers who are working on action plans for increasing the willingness to fight and to defend. In a similar vein, in the Netherlands, public opinion queries among the young generation indicate that the willingness to fight is higher than the willingness to die in combat (Brink, 2025). In the Netherlands, the concept of preparedness to die [in combat] - sneu­vel­be­reid - has been brought forward in recent public debates (NPO, 2025, a; b), investigating the willingness and length of potential involvement in a potential conflict. Within the military itself, the concept is linked with the motto of the Dutch military “Protect what we cherish” (Bescherm wat ons dierbaar is). Noteworthy here is also the dynamic dimension of the expressed levels of the willingness to fight, that can oscillate as influenced by national or international shaping events. 

These examples can be placed on a spectrum ranging from seed initiatives serving for preparedness for conflict, nudging function in building resilience to determining a switch in the mentality of the population in regards to a possible conflict, but are insufficient for overall population psychological resilience. For solid resilience, additional factors need to be considered and addressed, as presented in the following.

Psychological, cultural and historical factors

Psychological resilience is considered an outlier within the realm of resilience analysis, arguably being the most difficult factor to operationalize and plan for (Conable at al., 2019). 

Willingness to defend and actively prepare for participation in eventual hostilities is not only shaped by manifest top-down resilience campaigns, but is also influenced by “soft” factors such as cultural and historical aspects, national identity, feeling of belonging or historical grievances. 

Acts of aggression are currently not limited to the territorial integrity of the state, but manifest themselves as hybrid threats, and sometimes in unassuming ways, targeting population psychology. 

Population resilience is needed more than ever and information and psychological operations are thus an important part of national defence strategies. Deploying timely initiatives to build this resilience is paramount, as willingness to fight is key for engagement in combat. Paradoxically though, resilience plans assume the temporality of conflict, on different time scales and include variants of timelines. From the perspective of the willingness to fight, temporality is most likely desirable, since a time horizon makes willingness to resist more acceptable for the population. In the same time, resilience needs time and proactive measures to be built up in the population prior to the outbreak of a conflict. Resilience programs also have to take into account the time needed for population resilience to be build-up in a sustainable manner. Resilience and willingness to defend require build up, through constant interventions and messaging. Timing is therefore important. Medium to long time preparation is needed.

It is too late to address willingness to defend and population resilience after a conflict has started given that (among other factors) prolonged conflict can impact willingness to fight, as the population might develop other coping mechanisms. For example, daily repeated air raids in Kiev determining air alerts and calls addressed to the public to run for shelter are considered to target the psychology of the population, rather than having a tactical role in terms of hard military gain. After 3 years of conflict also, population de-sensibilisation to the air sirens is reported upon, again showcasing the need for careful consideration of how psychological resilience must be considered in comprehensive resilience programs.  

Psychological resilience must also include resilience in front of foreign information and manipulation campaigns, as explained in the previous sections. These can influence the population’s willingness to defend or fight. Testimony of this is the inclusion in the MSB brochure “If crisis or war comes” of the visually emphasised message: If Sweden is attacked by another country, we will never give up. All information to the effect that resistance is to cease is false. This messaging stands to counter envisioned disinformation campaigns and to build a national identity around the primordiality of protecting the country and willingness to defend. Lessons regarding resistance to foreign information campaigns are to be learned also from the Eastern countries of the former communist bloc. States formally in the USSR’s sphere of influence are better prepared against Russian foreign influence. Experiencing life under the communist regime or in the USSR sphere of influence has better prepared the population for resistance to manipulation or political extremism, in the sense of cognitive dissonance or what is “doublethink” in Orwellian terms, where public and private discourses and beliefs are separated as means of survival strategies. Because under communist rule this strategy was played out by most individuals of society, leading to a general double life in terms of manifested and real beliefs, it became a forming experience, also affecting future generations and structures. As memory shaping events become collective memory, in the former USSR sphere of influence there is a natural distrust towards messaging from Russia. A relevant example in this regard is to be found in the repeated warnings of the European Eastern states regarding the intentions and imminence of the threat posed by the Putin regime before the start of the war in Ukraine, warnings that political analysts found post-factum to be well founded and yet wrongly ignored by Western states. East European states were much more familiar with the true nature of the danger posed by the Putin regime and yet their repeated warnings were ignored due to a perceived less important geo-political position at the time. The collective memory reflecting the experience of life under undemocratic regimes and life behind the iron curtain is a factor to be considered when analysing population resilience in the face of FIMI. Anticipated population resistance is an important factor in state actors calculating decisions on military or covert actions. Such was the case of the 1980-81 Polish crisis, when the USSR anticipated that rather than seeing an insurmountable military resistance in Poland, as had been the case in Czechoslovakia, the population resistance would be much stronger and long lasting, factor which would have led to high costs long term for administrating the invaded territory (CIA, 1981). The anticipated subversion activities from the local population towards the occupier’s economic activity would have made USSR aid necessary, again raising the costs of holding the taken territory (Michaels, 2024). This is an example of population resistance overweighing the gains of a successful military intervention and the importance of sound “ground knowledge”.  Population resilience is also reflected in social cohesion. 

Network strength

Existing rifts in the social fabric of a country are factors that have to be considered for both resilience and the will to defend as: 1. threat actors can exploit these rifts in order to destabilize democracies and 2. they contribute to the sense of collective identity, which is an element influencing the willingness to defend. 

The role of the collective identity and its (possible) tensions with pluralism in democratic systems should also be investigated in order to identify the (possible) impact of internal structural cleavages on collective identity and subsequently on the willingness to defend. 

Multicultural or diverse societies might face additional challenges when it comes to the build-up of resilience within the population, due to different socio-economic and psychological profiles. The structure of networks (social capital) within a society is thus an important factor for both broader military strategy and specifically for societal resilience. 

As mentioned above, national identity is a factor taken into consideration in resilience and willingness to fight calculations and campaigns. This is influenced by historical factors, but feeling of belonging can be a shaping factor. Here again, the previously mentioned quote from the MSB brochure is relevant, indicating the collective positioning towards conflict. Looking at the case of the Netherlands, the feeling of identity is relevant given the polder model, which accommodates diversity and silos - what once was called the “pillarization” of society. Identity is a factor with high durability impact on the will to fight (Conable et al., 2018). This factor is of importance for targeting resilience programs in relation to differences in social network types and types of links. In the Netherlands, in cities such as Amsterdam, the majority – minority definition is being contested by researchers (see for example the works of Crul). The allochthon - autochthon demarcation has been officially abolished, and characterization of population groups is most objectively done in terms of individuals with or without migration background. On the backdrop of this diversity, the question of correctly analysing willingness to fight at population level - as a whole - comes up. Rather than looking at the whole, willingness to fight in multicultural societies should be analysed in the context of specific characteristics of population groups and consider any historical grievances that might influence degree of involvement.  

Closing remarks

If Sweden and the Nordic states have built their resilience levels in years, in the current geopolitical context states must implement enhanced similar programs in order to best be prepared for the potential of conflict escalating into war or present day wars overspilling over borders onto EU and NATO territory. 

Additionally, resilience programs, while aiming to rapidly achieve targets, must consider conflict directed messaging fatigue within the population, as over messaging could prove counter effective. Gradual or scenario based approaches are better suited for resilience building, with simple measures such as having “three days” emergency packages in house as a good start for initiating the wider reflection on population resilience. In a more complex approach, governments should also analyse any fault lines within their societies, weather these are social, technological or economic, that could serve as entry points for disruptive foreign actions. Reflecting on own sense of history and including identity shaping stories contributes to stronger cohesion and willingness to defend. When developing resilience campaigns and disseminating results publicly in order to showcase and strengthen results, governments and public bodies should manifest caution in regards with the publicly available data on governmental predictions and plans for resilience. 

One final point regards the subject of the costs incurred for building resilience. In the new political economy, one must always answer questions on: What is the cost of something? What must be prioritized? In the case of building population resilience, the question is:

 

What is the cost of inaction?

 

 

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